I once started the "Thoughts on a balanced system" thread on the Gaming (d20) forum, but it died. However, here are my thoughts on a system I alluded to, but never got to share. Below are some archetypes and how they function.

Fist fighter:

Raises physical stats exclusively. He doesn't use weapons, he trains his body to become a weapon. Therefore, he doesn't get an attack bonus. Has more need for experience than money (this point is moot if money can buy stat-boosting magic items). The only "expenses" his "equipment" incurs is his hospital bill. He is unlikely to wear anything but the lightest armor, since there are several unique unarmed techniques that are used from mid-air and prone positions, and even specially-made plate armor thats customized to the individual so theres the minimal amount of stress on each muscle will slow you down and tire you out when you are leaping into the sky, hitting the dirt, and picking yourself up off that dirt in quick succession. Another nice thing is that some places you can't go with a weapon, and thats no problem dfor you.

In summary:
Priority on Physical fitness and Techniques, but less interest in money and skills that let you save money. Uses his strength exclusively to determine damge. Lacks ranged fighting options.

Gunslinger:

Everything written here applies to the gun-user and his twin. the albalestier (AKA crossbow-user. It also appies to weapons like bombs and mechanical traps.) He defends himself with a mechanical device that fires a projectile. The weapon is easy to use however, the further back in time the campaign is set in, guns get more innaccurate and slow to reload, as well as have a smaller ammo capacity. Upper body strength does not impact the power of a bullet or crossbow bolt at all. Therefore money to buy more ammunition, gunpowder, and newer, stronger versions of guns take priority over muscularity. Also, skills will help maintain, repair, and replace your equipment. After awhile, the Gunslinger will have tapped out the abilities of using, building and repairing guns that already exist, and will look to become a better fighter, or he will start inventing all-new weapons. Inventing and modifying weapons will have its own demand for skills and money(you need resources to build with, and experimentation). As for learning techniques: it is unknown how many tricks you can do with a gun beyond sniping from a prone position in the tall grass, but the general consencious is: not many. Save for closed helmets and guantlets not being practical (and laying prone in heavy armor, especially if you aren't very strong, is a dangerous position), gunners don't have many problems with armor.

In summary:
High demand for money and skill points, little need for a strong body or hunting down a sensei to teach you his ancient maneuver. Uses his weapons attack bonus exclusively. Lacks Melee options.

Weapon master:
He actually has a need for a little of everything. Stats, skills, money, and techniques. He is likely to have a very high damage output since the strength of his body and the quality of his sword both contribute the overall power of his attacks. Also, he has the best compatibility with armor than anyone else. Money to replace and upgrade his gear is needed, as are skills that ease the financial burden (but with cheap or easy-to-maintain enough gear, he can cope with just money). With different weapons you can fight at close range, long range, even use light, throw-able weapons to fight at mid-and-close range. Also, with such high strength scores, his ability fight unarmed will be noticeable, but lack the power of a specialist. You can apply poisons to your weapons like a crossbow (requires a skill), and you can learn a number of techniques for use with your weapons. A versatile character who synergizes nicely.

In summary:

As I said, a little of everything. Can be melee or ranged.

Mage:

He's like a fist fighter in that he uses techniques and doesn't rely on money. He's like a gunslinger in that those techniques don't rely on his strength. However, these techniques are called spells, and they cost a lot, and they are called spells. Its meant to be quite a painful trade-off between being a pure mage who focuses on learning more and better spells, and becoming a fighter-mage hybrid character. The main problem with balancing magic is making it its own thing, making sure that it doesn't replace anything, while making sure that no other archetype can do everything a mage can and more.

In summary:
Specializes in spells, which are really just fancier, more expensive techniques.

In this system, money is useless to fist fighters and mages' development, beyond spending the money to hire contacts and gather information on legendary/forgotten spells and martial arts techniques, that is. Also, a gunner-inventor might want to be quick, but isn't really interested in perfecting his body into a perfect (although a few more hit points never hurt anyone, mind you).

To make this system work, we ideally should make each of the following a whole different ballgame from each other to acquire:
Physical stats
Money
Skills (particularly Building/Engineering skills)
Technique points

Now, you could allow the players to spend money on excercise machines, teachers, or personal trainers, but this sets a bad trend. Sometimes, the main reason the PCs are adventuring is because they have massive finicial problems (also known as the "way to gamble and then commit suicide and leave me with everything while I'm dying from an expensive-to-cure disease, DAD." clause....trying saying that five times fast.) and if they get a load of money, they might pay their money problems and retire. Point is, money has a use besides buffing the bejebus out of your characters.

So, how about importing some of the solutions in Shadowrun? In Shadowrun, cyberware costs money, but magic costs karma (experience/development points) and some archetypes still need both nuyen and karma. So they printed some optional rules that allow you to exchange karma and money, as if karma was another good on the market (even though the merchants of karma are rather....exotic individuals). I don't really like this option. People generally take a job for money, not experience points (even though the players expect it *ravenously* from the GM), experience points are supposed to be purely representational. For the above reason, characters can't say "Oh, I'll just take my payment in XP," and taking the reward money to buy those same experience points is just as bad.

The other consideration is the "License board option" from Final Fantasy XII. Basically you spend points on stat augments, learning abilities, and gaining the privillege to equip the weapons and armor you paid for. Thats annoying and stupid. Its just like MMORPGs that have a "minimum level" requirement on overpowered gear (Seriously, why does bronze armor even exist in an iron age armor shop? Are my first-level warriors so pathetic the awesomeness of up-to-date metallurgy overwhelm their puny frames? They have to muddle around with an alloy made from copper and deadly arsenic until they earn the "right" to use modern weapons?) Just look at this VG Cats (http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=215) (warning, VG cats has the naughtiest humor I've ever seen in a webcomic, viewer discresion is advised) comic to illustrate my point.

I'm open to suggestions.

Thoughtbot360

2007-11-16, 08:01 PM

Hmm...Been busy. I thought I'd throw some gadgets that are particularly useful for adventurers in a relatively low-tech setting. These devices make having an engineer on your party useful, .

Hookshot
-Useful in grabbing a faraway object and pulling it in or pulling the user towards it (depends on which is heavier.) Type: Gadget Complexity: 4 parts

Autocrossbow
-Like a normal crossbow, but wider to accommodate its function of loading five bolts at once and shotting them in a cone. Still takes a while to crank and load the crossbow. Type: Gadget Complexity: 15 parts

Climbing Clawshot
-A combination of Ninja climbing tools, the hookshot, and the grappling hook, this device sticks to surfaces, and also allows the user to scale vertical surfaces and lower himself from horizontal ones. Type: Gadget Complexity: 13 parts

Reflector
-Made of a prism held in the the center of an open globe, with a rotatable mirror piece that redirects rays of sunlight and gaze/ray attacks in all directions except the one that the user was presently in. Might not work with all elemental rays. Type: Gadget Complexity: 4 parts

Dancing Armor
-In all truthfulness, the Ancient and Renaissance world had robots. However, they were limited to doing one task. One of the most notable was a Lion built by Leonardo De Vinci (I think it was him...I'm too tired to look.) that marched up to the King of France, reared back, sat, and opened a compartment in its chest that presented the king a bouquet of flowers. Anyway, these robots are made with a network or wires connecting gears and other moving parts on opposite sides of the machine. Usually, these are mostly made while in the employ of some wealth patron who will use the machine for entertaining guests. Type: Gadget Complexity: 25 parts, excluding suit of armor

Steam Ship
-Ahead of the times, this vessel can travel the sea without relying on wind. Type: Vehicle Complexity: High

Airship
-Sure, why not? Type: Vehicle Complexity: Very High

Enlong

2007-11-16, 09:11 PM

Very nice. But darn it! Why'd you have to say "autocrossbow"? Can you promise me that if I ever get my Final Fantasy D20 off the ground, you won't say that I stole the Autocrossbow from you?

Thoughtbot360

2007-11-17, 10:19 AM

Very nice. But darn it! Why'd you have to say "autocrossbow"? Can you promise me that if I ever get my Final Fantasy D20 off the ground, you won't say that I stole the Autocrossbow from you?

Heh. Actually, we're kind of both stealing Autocrossbow from Final Fantasy 3/6j, at least in concept. But you know, "Hookshot" and "Clawshot" are from the Legend of Zelda series. I might be due for some creative renaming/reconceptualing.

Well, I could call the autocrossbow device from the above list the "repeating crossbow". I know that D&Ds repeating crossbow is a little different, but the name actually sounds much less modern than *Auto*-crossbow.

Hookshot's name fits the setting, but any reference to a popular video game might not convey the mood I want the setting to hold. In fact, I might add the Minish cap's "Mole Mitts", and rename them "Tunneling claws" (which fits seeing as how they are claws...that tunnel.) to my list of gadgets. The ideal world will involve players making up their own inventions, which is limited by the amount of parts the device in question would have to have. Here are some parts which can not be used at all unless they are used by an inventor in the right era:

Steam Engine: Usually not before the industrial revolution, but exceptions can be made.
Combustion Engine: This is whats used by many modern vehicles. Uses petroleum (gasoline) or similar combustible, liquid energy source. Sorry, but if your fantasy barbarian wants a nice ride, he better stick to something animal-driven.
Plastics: Again, its a relatively modern invention, however, I have heard that quite a while back, people could make them out of hemp, but that outlawed.

and other stuff.

On another note, speaking of Final Fantasy table top RPGs, there exists one, but it is its own system, not D20. Its free, too. Its called the ZODIAC (http://www14.brinkster.com/zodiacrpg/) system. It uses pretty much every die used by D&D except the d20, and captures the feel of the Final Fantasy games. I'm not saying your project is now useless (Zodiac works completely different and assumes different things about how a fantasy setting works than D20, and there are people who may prefer your product), its just a good resource.

levi

2007-11-18, 11:00 PM

As you're starting from scratch, I have a suggestion you may want to consider. Given how the various archetypes you've mentioned tend to require different sorts of resources (physical traits, equimpent, special techniques) in varying amounts, a unified system of character points might work better than something similar to what DnD uses.

I'll use BESM as an example of what I'm talking about (It's a system I'm fairly familiar with.) There are three classes of "stuff" in BESM: stats, attributes, and skills. All of which are bought with character points. Stats are the basic core numbers of the character, like abilities in DnD and similar stats in many systems. Skills are, well, skills. They include all the usual skill stuff.

Attributes are, in many ways, the core of the system. They cover a lot of ground. They are used for improving your attack and defense, special attacks, magic type powers, and even equipment. This is the major differnce (philosophy wise) from DnD. Equipment is bought using character points just like any other character feature. It's abilities are simply definded by use of the other attributes as appropriate.

For example, if a character wants a jet pack, they can use character points to buy an Item atrribute that provides the Flight attribute. Another sort of character (a Faerie, for instance), would just buy Flight directly.

To illustrate how this works in conjunction with what you've posted above, I'll suggest (in broad strokes) how each of your archetypes would spend thier character points.

Fist Fighter

This type spends most of it's CP on physical stats, melee attack and defense, and attributes that represent his fighting techniques.

Gunslinger

This type spends a large portion of it's CP on his gun or guns, with the rest going to raise his ranged attack and defence.

Weapon Master

Similarly to the gunslinger, this type spends a lot of CP on equipment, however, he often buys armor as well. He also spends it on increading his attack and defence and his physical stats.

Mage

This type spends it's CP on mental stats and attributes to represent his magical spells or related abilities.

So, what do you think?

Also, in general, when building a new system, I suggest you lock down the core rules framework before getting into topics like specific equipment. I have an interest in game design and a fairly extensive knowledge of various RPG systems and would love to help you get this idea up and running.

Thoughtbot360

2007-11-19, 10:58 PM

As you're starting from scratch, I have a suggestion you may want to consider. Given how the various archetypes you've mentioned tend to require different sorts of resources (physical traits, equimpent, special techniques) in varying amounts, a unified system of character points might work better than something similar to what DnD uses.

I'll use BESM as an example of what I'm talking about (It's a system I'm fairly familiar with.) There are three classes of "stuff" in BESM: stats, attributes, and skills. All of which are bought with character points. Stats are the basic core numbers of the character, like abilities in DnD and similar stats in many systems. Skills are, well, skills. They include all the usual skill stuff.

Attributes are, in many ways, the core of the system. They cover a lot of ground. They are used for improving your attack and defense, special attacks, magic type powers, and even equipment. This is the major differnce (philosophy wise) from DnD. Equipment is bought using character points just like any other character feature. It's abilities are simply definded by use of the other attributes as appropriate.

For example, if a character wants a jet pack, they can use character points to buy an Item atrribute that provides the Flight attribute. Another sort of character (a Faerie, for instance), would just buy Flight directly.

To illustrate how this works in conjunction with what you've posted above, I'll suggest (in broad strokes) how each of your archetypes would spend thier character points.

Fist Fighter

This type spends most of it's CP on physical stats, melee attack and defense, and attributes that represent his fighting techniques.

Gunslinger

This type spends a large portion of it's CP on his gun or guns, with the rest going to raise his ranged attack and defence.

Weapon Master

Similarly to the gunslinger, this type spends a lot of CP on equipment, however, he often buys armor as well. He also spends it on increading his attack and defence and his physical stats.

Mage

This type spends it's CP on mental stats and attributes to represent his magical spells or related abilities.

So, what do you think?

Also, in general, when building a new system, I suggest you lock down the core rules framework before getting into topics like specific equipment. I have an interest in game design and a fairly extensive knowledge of various RPG systems and would love to help you get this idea up and running.

Well, thank you for your post, I haven't yet decided on the -exact- rules setting, but I was planing on using a character-point system, however, I've never heard of using character points to buy stuff with before. I threw the list of devices in my second post to get the ideas of what kind of inventions I was learning towards.

I would accept your help on designing this system, if thats what your offering. However, here are some assumptions to start with, mostly revolving around combat:

1) The ideal world would be set in the late medieval/early renaissance period, not necessarily going so far as to make a Steampunk world, but certainly late enough so that gunpowder weapons will be in prototype form. However other settings such as Dynastic China and Contemporary might fit the archetypes we want to create. However, this system might have the potential for being universal (the main problem is the technology level changing the game). Lets focus on the late medieval period of technology and create a fantasy world around that, first.

2) Generally speaking, long-ranged weapons and close-ranged weapons don't mix. The battle is, at any given time, being fought with one or the other. Melee weapons can not return enemy fire, and Projectile weapons are slow to reload and generally not useful for defense (also, RL martial artists technically can break the index finger of someone wielding a trigger weapon while disarming them, so thats no good). This means that when a Gunner and a Fist Fighter (the two archetypes least like each other) meet on the field of battle, it becomes a question of how well the Gunslinger can pin down the Fighter, and baring pinning him down, the question becomes how well can the Gunslinger reload and aim his gun while outrunning his opponent? And how should we compensate the guy who loses with our answer?

3) "Yes, Mr. Gunner, any Melee guy who didn't dump movement speed entirely (or who is on a Horse/vehicle while you are *not*) can catch up to you if don't give up reloading your gun (and even if you do, good luck outrunning the horse), BUT if you can start your attack from an out-of-reach location, or get support from your party members, OR lie prone in the tall and snipe, OR just somehow avoid getting into that position-then you might not have to draw your sidearm: usually some kind of easy-to-use melee weapon or short-to-midrange firearm/gadget"

4) Based on History, someone using bow and arrows has fewer options than a trigger weapon, best detailed here (http://www.mu.ranter.net/theory/weapons.html#archer1):

Archery was a devastating weapon on the battlefield, but only if used properly. There is obviously a maximum range at which they can fight, but there is also a minimum range. I the enemy is too close, you are not getting optimum power on you arcs. Additionally, it is nigh impossible to pick a specific target and hit it while it's on the move in a battle. No one who ever tried this tactic had any degree of success. This is one of the reasons the English archers were so successful. The English found that you did best by dropping volley after volley indiscriminately into the enemy ranks. Once he began to close, you had to worry about hitting your own troops. If the enemy got even a few men into the ranks of your archers, every infantryman would kill several times his number and a horsemen would resemble a scythe going through wheat. Not only did they have the advantage over the archer in close combat, but he could not even fire back.

Of interesting historical note is the response to archery and, ultimately, to guns. These weapons were best against heavily armored opponents. The response was to create faster, more lightly armored troops. These could rush in on the archers quickly with minimal losses and destroy them. Terrain was a big issue as well. There is an important concept known as the military crest of a hill. If you place missile troops atop a hill, they can kill enemies at range, but anyone coming up the hill is sheltered from their fire. The modern response is to place your troops slightly down the slope of the hill. In the case of archers, this is often difficult to accomplish with any sort of discipline. Gunmen can crouch or go prone with ease, but an archer has to stand on this uneven ground in some attempt at a formation. When defending himself, he gains less advantage from the higher ground than a melee fighter would.

An archer as a solo character had additional problems. A bow cannot be carried strung for any length of time. Doing so weakens the arms of the bow. Stringing one is a difficult process and cannot be accomplished in a crisis situation. It is doubtful the enemy would stop and wait for a minute while you string your bow. Additionally you can only fight targets that are at a significant range. The common historical response for an archer to close combat was to throw your bow at the enemy to give you an extra second to draw a knife. There are also several historical stories of archers attempting to use an arrow as a dagger. Most of these stories end with a dead archer.

levi

2007-11-20, 03:50 AM

Well, thank you for your post, I haven't yet decided on the -exact- rules setting, but I was planing on using a character-point system, however, I've never heard of using character points to buy stuff with before.

When I first read about it, it was new to me as well. Since then I've really come to like the idea. It provided a nice balance between equipment heavy characters and special ability heavy characters. It's also nice in that equimpent and other abilities use the same rules, which simplifies gameplay.

On the other tentacle, it may no be to your taste and you'd rather use a system of wealth and gear more like that of DnD.

I threw the list of devices in my second post to get the ideas of what kind of inventions I was learning towards.

Oh, I see. I had thought that you'd decided to simply start creating equipment even though your core system wasn't finalized yet. Which is a pretty odd way to do things. As you where just brainstorming flavor ideas, I simply go the wrong impression.

I would accept your help on designing this system, if thats what your offering.

Sure am. I can't promise how much time I'll be able to provide, but I'll help out where I can. As much as I like d20, sometimes I feel that it's become overly dominant and made developers reluctant to create a system from scratch. So it's nice to see someone with that ambition and I'm willing to provide what support and encouragement I can.

1) The ideal world would be set in the late medieval/early renaissance period, not necessarily going so far as to make a Steampunk world, but certainly late enough so that gunpowder weapons will be in prototype form. However other settings such as Dynastic China and Contemporary might fit the archetypes we want to create. However, this system might have the potential for being universal (the main problem is the technology level changing the game). Lets focus on the late medieval period of technology and create a fantasy world around that, first.

Honesly, I think you might be getting a little ahead of yourself here. Before getting into setting specific stuff, you should focus on the core mechanics of the system. More on this below.

2) Generally speaking, long-ranged weapons and close-ranged weapons don't mix. The battle is, at any given time, being fought with one or the other. Melee weapons can not return enemy fire, and Projectile weapons are slow to reload and generally not useful for defense (also, RL martial artists technically can break the index finger of someone wielding a trigger weapon while disarming them, so thats no good). This means that when a Gunner and a Fist Fighter (the two archetypes least like each other) meet on the field of battle, it becomes a question of how well the Gunslinger can pin down the Fighter, and baring pinning him down, the question becomes how well can the Gunslinger reload and aim his gun while outrunning his opponent? And how should we compensate the guy who loses with our answer?

That seems to be a reasonable set of assumptions concerning melee vs ranged combat. You definetly seem to be aiming for a bit of realism in this aspect of your system. This reminds me of a quote from some old time gangster (I can't remember which one): "Always run from a knife and rush a gun."

3) "Yes, Mr. Gunner, any Melee guy who didn't dump movement speed entirely (or who is on a Horse/vehicle while you are *not*) can catch up to you if don't give up reloading your gun (and even if you do, good luck outrunning the horse), BUT if you can start your attack from an out-of-reach location, or get support from your party members, OR lie prone in the tall and snipe, OR just somehow avoid getting into that position-then you might not have to draw your sidearm: usually some kind of easy-to-use melee weapon or short-to-midrange firearm/gadget"

Well, in this senario, the gunner had better hope he managed to damage the fighter pretty heavily before he managed to close. With his likely mediocre to poor melee abilities, he'll only be able to hold his own if the fighter is badly injured already.

4) Based on History, someone using bow and arrows has fewer options than a trigger weapon, best detailed here (http://www.mu.ranter.net/theory/weapons.html#archer1):

That is some interesting reading. It does make a lot of good points, but I can't help but think of one major historical battle that defied the common expectations of such senarios.

I can't remember the name of the battle in question, but the English where seiging a French castle. The vast majority of the English troops present where longbowmen who where also doubling as seige engineers. To fortify thier position in expectation of an eventual charge of French foot and horse, they pounded large numbers of posts into the ground, using large wooden mallets.

When the French did charge the archers, it went horribly for them. The weather had been rainy and the ground was soft underfoot. As the charge lanes where congested with fortifications, the French got backed up and mired in the mud, especially the horse and heavy foot. After raining volley after volley on the massed troops, the longbowmen (who where lightly armored and could move in the mud better) simply brained the French troops with thier mallets.

- -- --- ---- --- -- -

I think the first thing a game designer should consider when creating an RPG system is the conflict resolution mechanic and other core gameplay mechanics. There are many options to choose from. Roll over mechanics vs roll under mechanics, internal difficulties vs external difficulties, single vs multiple dice vs die pools, dice vs cards vs other mechanisms, opposed vs unopposed checks, etc.

Also important to consider at this early stage are the stats and related numerical values the system will use. You need to decide what stats will be core stats and which (if any) will be derived from other stats. You need to specify what the expected range of the various stats will be and what a given value means in practical terms.

You will need to decide whether your system will be skill based, not skill based, or a hybrid of some sort. You need to determin whether various aspects of gameplay (such as combat, magic, skill usage, social interaction, etc.) will use the same resolution system or not. Each of these (and other) situations might use the core system, the core system with special rules, or specialized systems.

Each of these aspects of the system can have dramatic effects on the way the system plays. The resulting rules can be simple, complex, or somewhere in the middle. Various aspects can influnce the speed of gameplay. The mathematical properties of the various rules form the core method of balancing the game. These and other issues can affect how easy or difficult the game is to learn, play, and run.

If you wish, I can provide more detail on any of the topics I've mentioned. Please feel free to ask for a clarification if anything I've said is unclear or unfamiliar to you.

Best of luck.

Thoughtbot360

2007-11-22, 10:32 AM

Well, Happy turkey day people (and for those of you who live in .....Not-America: good luck with whatever it is you celebrate.)

Just so this won't just be a "bump" post, I've decided to list my preferences in an RPG today:

1) The lethality of combat is an important thing to measure before we set out. It can determine if the PCs are shrugging off twenty arrows to the chest or dashing to get behind every piece of cover and peering around every corner as a matter of course. On one hand, I dislike mounds after mounds of hitpoints gained every level (think about it, why does the same level healing spell get LESS effective when you use it on someone whose healthier and tougher than Old farmer Joe and his 1d4 hit dice?) but its just as bad if the character's don't develop (defensively AND offensively) at all or the BBEG dies in his introductory scene because he couldn't react in time to get out of the way of a hard sneeze. I prefer to keep the numbers small, but don't really like a grim-and-gritty system where you have to keep track of all the digits your hand has lost or you you suffer from a debilitating illness or madness after the casual sword fight. Insane traps from the Tomb of Horrors (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35511&page=2&highlight=horrors) are right out.

2) That said, I don't like Ressurection, that is, the standard convenient spell that just raising the dead as easily as he fell. Somehow, money and experience loss don't really seem to counteract the nagging question of "what stops everyone from being ressurected?" Especially the bad guy. If you can't someone, and kill him good, why fight in the first place? Yet, if I ban ressurection, that's sure to take lethality up a notch. Hmmm.....

3) The noncombat world needs a little fleshing out. ...What? I don't have anything, I'm just mentioning it.